SINGAPORE – Tributes have poured in for Broadway legend Stephen Sondheim, who died early on Friday (Nov 26) on the age of 91.
The theatre neighborhood mourned the composer and lyricist of musicals comparable to West Aspect Story, Into The Woods and Sweeney Todd, who died at his dwelling in Roxbury, Connecticut.
British composer Andrew Lloyd Webber known as him “the musical theatre large of our instances, an inspiration not simply to 2 however to a few generations”.
“Your contribution to theatre won’t ever be equalled,” he wrote on Twitter.
Influential British theatre producer Cameron Waterproof coat stated in an announcement to The Guardian: “The theatre has misplaced one in all its best geniuses and the world has misplaced one in all its best and most unique writers. Sadly, there’s now an enormous within the sky.
“However the brilliance of Stephen Sondheim will nonetheless be right here as his legendary songs and reveals can be carried out for evermore. Goodbye outdated pal and thanks from all of us.”
Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda shared on social media an e-mail from Sondheim, his mentor, about Tick, Tick…Increase!, the Jonathan Larson musical which Miranda lately directed as a Netflix movie. Sondheim, who was the late Larson’s idol, is performed by Bradley Whitford within the movie, and his actual voice seems in a voicemail recording.
Miranda had e-mailed Sondheim to say “his ears should be burning from the numerous Sondheim kindnesses being shared from the generations of writers he mentored”.
Sondheim had replied: “Thanks for the great increase to my spirits, Lin. It is a side of my life I am happy with. I really feel as if I’ve repaid (partially, not less than) what I owe Oscar, ” referring to his personal mentor, the lyricist and playwright Oscar Hammerstein II.
Miranda concluded in his publish: “Steve: you repaid your debt to Oscar 1000 instances over. We love you. I really like you.”
Hollywood stars together with Hugh Jackman, Anna Kendrick and Jake Gyllenhaal additionally paid tribute to the late composer. Jackman wrote on Twitter: “Sometimes somebody comes alongside that basically shifts a complete artwork kind. Stephen Sondheim was a type of.”
Former United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton posted on Twitter a photograph of herself and her husband, former US president Invoice Clinton, applauding Sondheim at an award ceremony.
“A peerless composer and lyricist, Stephen Sondheim stirred our souls, broadened our imaginations, and reminded us that nobody is alone,” she wrote. “He modified the theatre-and our culture-with his craft, his humor, and his coronary heart.”
A number of, together with Broadway stars Bernadette Peters, Imelda Staunton and Josh Gad, in contrast him to playwright William Shakespeare. “Maybe not since April twenty third of 1616 has theater misplaced such a revolutionary voice,” Gad wrote on Twitter, referring to the date of Shakespeare’s loss of life.
Peters, a frequent Sondheim collaborator who created the function of the Witch in Into The Woods, informed The New York Occasions: “He was like Shakespeare, and what a privilege to have the ability to say, ‘Steve, what did you imply while you wrote that?’ You would get it proper from the horse’s mouth. I at all times say, he gave me a lot to sing about.”